CHAPTER XLI
Tristan was still at Agravale with some two hundred men, when a mob of peasant folk came into the city, bringing with them a lean, half-starved southron who had fled to Agravale over the mountains. The man had served as a slave in Serjabil’s palace, and being wise as to the Caliph’s schemes of conquest, he had dared martyrdom and fled for the north. Two other Christians who had shared his flight had been taken and beheaded on the road. The third had gained the mountains in safety, and having crossed by the pass known as St. Isidore’s Gate, had descended into the lowlands with the cry of a prophet—
“Fly, for the Saracens are at my heels!”
It was but two days since Blanche’s men had marched from Agravale, glad to return home through the Seven Streams after their campaigning in the south. The Duchess had tarried one day more, leaving Tristan and Rosamunde to guard the rear as they marched north towards the fords of the Lorient. At Agravale she had received an embassage from the King stating that he was coming south with his barons to restore peace to the Southern Marches. He besought her to meet him at a certain border town that they might discuss the state of the Seven Streams. And since Blanche had no great belief in the King’s honour, nor in the sincerity of his faith, she had determined to meet him at the head of her men, the most powerful plea for peace and justice.
It was evening when the news came to Tristan as he was preparing to evacuate Agravale on the morrow and follow Blanche towards the north. He had but two hundred men left in the city, mostly Samson’s veterans from the Seven Streams. The country folk crowded round him as he came out upon the steps of Lilias’s palace, and besought him not to desert them in their extremity, and to leave their farms and hamlets at the mercy of the Saracens. Tristan pointed out to the chief pleader the smallness of his company, reminded them that they had little cause to claim protection at his hands. But when some of the rough men wept, and besought him the more to save their homes and families from the sword, pointing out that St. Isidore’s Gate might be held by a hundred resolute men, he told them he would consider the matter, and give them an answer before dawn.
That night Tristan went alone into Lilias’s garden and paced to and fro through the tangled grass. He was tempted greatly to abandon the south, for he had fought his fill since he had sailed from Purple Isle and landed in the heart of the Seven Streams. He had met grief and conquered it, and found love at last after many days. He was as a man who had grown weary of the chaos of war and hungered for God’s peace, and the clear calm of a woman’s love.
It was about Rosamunde’s face that Tristan’s passions played as he walked in Lilias’s garden under the moon. Should he gamble once more with fate, stake that which he had won with his own good sword, when the future stretched clear as a summer dawn?
Had not the lords of the Southern Marches harried the province of the Seven Streams and carried death and despair into a thousand homes? What claims had these people upon his pity? Could it be that God had decreed their destruction?
Great was the temptation that assailed Tristan that night to take Rosamunde his love and to ride from Agravale, leaving the Southern Marches to their fate. He could overtake the Duchess in a day, and leave the future to her and the King. If Serjabil and his Saracens crossed the mountains, the King could gather his great vassals and give them battle in due season. Had he not done enough with his single sword?
But as great hearts rise to great needs, so Tristan cast the tempter out of his soul, and grew strong in the strength of heroic manhood. The shade of Samson seemed to walk at his side, Samson who had been crucified for Christ and the Cross, and who had met death, a living sacrifice. Should he not save these helpless peasant folk from the Saracen scimitars and the false creed of their Prophet? He would stand shamed before God when the villages flamed and the smoke of their burning ascended to heaven.
Tristan knelt down in the grass and prayed, with the deserted city silent under the moon and the great stars shining overhead.
“Lord Jesus,” he said, “I pray Thee pardon these weak thoughts that rose in my heart against my manhood and Thee. Grant me Thy grace to this good end that I may save these helpless ones who have sought my sword. Give me Thy strength against the heathen that I may quit myself as a Christian should.”
At midnight he went out from Lilias’s garden to the great hall where his men were gathered. Some were asleep on the rush-strewn floor, others were watching and talking together.
“Sirs,” he said, “how many will stand with me for the Holy Cross, and hold the passes till the Duchess comes?”
Every hand was stretched towards him; nor did they fail him, these iron men, who had followed Samson through the Seven Streams.
“God bless you all!” he cried, with a smile on his face. “Percival, take horse and ride after the Duchess. Tell her the Saracens are marching for the mountains, that we go to hold St. Isidore’s Gate. Ride, man, as though the devil rode at your heels. The Duchess will turn and give us succour.”
With the dawn came the great trial of Tristan’s strength, for Rosamunde was ignorant of what had passed, and it lay with Tristan to tell her the truth. Moreover, she had lived amid dreams since she had been brought from the Mad Mere into Agravale. For her life’s woes were at an end; she had forgotten that death still walked the earth.
She came to Tristan that morning in the garden, and found him pacing under the trees, fully harnessed, his sword at his side. There was that same grim earnestness upon his face that she had known of old when he had taken her to Holy Guard through the woods. As she came with her stately step over the grass betwixt the beds of balsams and the thickets of fruit trees her eyes grew dark under the sweep of her golden hair.
“Tristan,” she said, “you seem grim to-day. Should we be sad at leaving the south?”
He winced a little and looked into her eyes, solemnly and sadly, like a man who suffered. His earnest face awoke vague fears in her, sudden dread of some fresh misfortune. She held out her hands to him with a questioning smile.
“Tristan,” she said, “why are you silent?”
“I am thinking,” he answered her, “of how our lives change even in one setting of the sun.”
“Speak,” she said, “for I am no child to be kept carefully in the dark.”
“Rosamunde,” he answered, squaring his shoulders and stiffening his great neck, “I thought the sea had grown calm at last, and that no more storms would come between us. Yet how frail are the hopes of men. Once more the sword must leave the sheath.”
She reached out her arms to him with a sudden cry and the mute look of a frightened child. Tristan’s hands were upon her shoulders. There was a divine tenderness upon his face as he looked in her eyes and told her the truth.
“Take courage,” he said to her, “for if ever a man needed love, I, Tristan, am that man to-day. Serjabil and his Saracens are marching for the mountains, thinking to have an easy victory over Christians weakened by their feuds. It is God’s will that we should take the sword and save the innocent from further shame.”
She hung in his arms, looking up like one dazed into his face.
“Ah, Tristan, what must follow?”
His voice shook a little as he answered her words, holding her very close to him, like one who knew not what the days might bring.
“Rosamunde,” he said, “I go to hold the mountain passes till Blanche and her men can send me succour.”
“But you have so few with you——”
“We are enough,” he said; “and if not enough, where lies the shame?”
She turned her head upon his shoulder with a gesture of impatience, a pouting of the mouth that did not escape him.
“Tristan, you are mad,” she pleaded, “to risk so much for those who have injured us.”
“God knows, I fought not against the poor,” he said, “but against the evil in high places. Now comes the hour when I may save the weak.”
Rosamunde broke away from him suddenly and stood apart, like one whose pride takes umbrage at a threat. Her eyes grew bright with the impatience of the moment, for, believing all storm clouds to have passed from the sky, she had drifted dreamily towards a haven of rest. The sudden revulsion made her rebel against an enterprise that to her seemed mad.
“Tristan,” she said, “you shall not go. Are my wishes nothing in this?”
The man’s face appeared wreathed in shadows. He looked at her sadly out of his dark eyes, as though baffled by a mood that he had not foreseen.
“Would you love a man,” he answered her, “who played the coward and fled from fighting for Christ and the Cross?”
“You are no coward,” she retorted hotly. “I, Rosamunde of Joyous Vale, can swear to that. But as for this madness, I will not praise it; you can play the hero without being a fool.”
“It is not folly,” he said very patiently.
“But why tempt death,” she cried again, “because your hot courage spurs you on? Wait till the King and the Duchess come, till the Southern Marches teem with steel and a thousand banners blow to the wind.”
“By then,” he said, shaking his head, “Serjabil and his men will have crossed the mountains and given the countryside over to rapine.”
“What of the countryside?” she retorted, growing less generous as her impatience increased. “Who set the torch to the great forests, and burnt homes and hamlets in the cause of God?”
Tristan started and caught his breath, as though she had turned a sword against his heart.
“Why taunt me,” he said, “because I fought for you and Samson and the Seven Streams? It was against the ruffians of the Church that I fired the forest. God judge me if I did ill. The greater be my duty now to guard the weak against the strong.”
“Not so,” she said, with a flood of bitterness; “the sword is more to you than a woman’s heart. It is your glory that you love, your strength and your great fame. I, a mere woman, must give way to honour. For you are afraid, Tristan, lest men should jeer.”
Tristan clung by patience even though her taunts were the more bitter by reason of their ingratitude. Though he had imagined that Rosamunde would have sped him with brave words, even to death if God so willed it, he took her anger more as the anger of a child than the strong purpose of a grown woman. Therefore he stood out before her, convinced of honour, and sure in his own heart that she would turn to him when the impetuous mood had passed.
“Not for glory,” he said, “shall I leave you here. It is not easy to run from love.”
“Why go, then?” she cried, turning away her head, her hands playing with the rich girdle about her body. “Is duty the sorry nag that bears you hence? Before Heaven, Tristan, if you refuse me this, I will return to Holy Guard and live among ruins.”
His dark eyes followed her as she drifted to and fro in her blue gown over the brilliant grass. She was very lovely even in her anger, with her warm cheeks and her eager eyes. Yet Tristan, having a will more strong than her wrath, determined to take her at her word.
“So be it,” he said, solemnly enough; “I will send Telamon with you and twenty men. The Gloire will bear you straight to the sea; Lilias’s barge is moored in the shallows. Man can promise no safer place than Holy Guard; if the worst comes to the worst, you can sail for the north.”
Rosamunde looked at him, sudden wistfulness shining through the mask of wrath, as though she half doubted the truth of his words. There was no wavering of Tristan’s eyes, no loosening of the determined mouth. Her pride waxed in her as she gazed on his face, perhaps because she felt that she had earned his pity, in that she had failed him when he needed her love.
“So be it, then,” she said, turning away under the trees. “I shall be ready for Telamon before the sun is at noon.”